Another Flash 9 post/flash alternatives, etc.

Hi. First of all, thanks for DSL. After lots of searching, it is the ONLY linux distribution that suits my needs...Except for possibly Morphix, but I'd looked so much at that point that I wasn't about to invest X more hours seeing if it would work for me or not.

I'd like to preface the rest of this post by saying that I'm a real linux newbie, and I'm using version 3.4.5.

I've tested out flash 7 enough to say that for me, it works about 70-75% of the time...And that just isn't cutting it.

I believe I have read every post on the board about Flash 9, and Flash 9 beta, and everyone seems to say pretty much the same thing: it crashes constantly.

However, a couple posts led me to believe that some people were having a little success with it, maybe? If that's the case, it'd be great if they shared their secret ;-).

So first of all, I'd like to know if anyone HAS gotten (flash 9 final or beta) working...And honestly, crashing infrequently enough that it works the majority of the time counts to me, at this point. In my case, it crashes firefox before flash content even loads.

I have read that in order to use Flash 9, you have to install Gtk2, Gtk2 firefox, (xfree/xorg?), and boot with dsl alsa.

In regards to the last part, booting with "dsl alsa," is that critical to just getting the player to function, or only for it to play sound? Furthermore, do you just have to enter "dsl alsa" at boot, or do you have to download/install any alsa packages (alsadebs, etc)? And what if you're not otherwise using alsa?

Also, I've read a little about open source things (gnash for one, I believe?) that can play flash. Are any of them at the point where they're a reasonable alternative to flash7/flash9? How do they compare, success-rate/frequency of crash-wise?

And finally, I don't know about the legality of such programs, so if anyone objects to answering on that basis, that's cool. But though I don't think I've any used any of them, I know of programs that can save streaming video, etc. Do any of these work under DSL, and if so, does the file that gets saved require conversion to another kind of file (.wmv, .avi, whatever) to be played from the hard drive-and if so-are there any good converters for this in existence that work with DSL? And I'm assuming that such a trick would not work for things like line rider...Pretty sure of that, actually, but does anyone know different?

Sorry for the long post...And everyone can feel free to ignore everything I've said and condense it all down to "How can I play/use everything flash under dsl" and answer that, if such an answer exists. Thank you.

Posted by WDef on Oct. 26 2007,19:51

Quote

open source things (gnash for one, I believe?) that can play flash. Are any of them at the point where they're a reasonable alternative to flash7/flash9?

A few months back I delved into this and, at that time, Gnash had some level of Flash9 capability. What it mainly lacked from what I could gather was the ability to navigate using the mouse within the media.

Posted by stupid_idiot on Oct. 26 2007,20:25

These are currently in the pipeline; hope to get them out in one month (when my finals exam is over):- a minimal gtk2 extension (tentatively named "gtk2-core.unc") [<2.0M]- lightened gtk2 Firefox; possibly recompiled; approx. 6.5M or less; for details, please look at this thread: < Moz size-reduction >The point is to minimize the hassle (download size, etc) of getting Firefox (and Flash 9) working. As of now, it "just works"; it is a matter of carefully packaging and finalizing the extensions.In short, there's alot to look forward to around the beginning of December.

Posted by curaga on Oct. 27 2007,06:37

For converting videos, Mencoder is the best.

I don't know any stream rippers, but I do have a script that can download Youtube videos.. It's in the scripts section, and I think it needs the full wget.

Posted by genericnameetc on Oct. 29 2007,02:24

Thanks for the replies.

I might try playing around with gnash a bit...Know virtually nothing about it, but if there is currently no working Flash 9 solution, it could be worth investigating.

Mencoder, eh? Ah...Actually, come to think of it, I think there's a site that will let you copy the url of the stream you're after and download it to your computer...Never thought of it before, but that would make downloading a separate stream ripper unnecessary. Assuming it works, that is. I don't remember what it's called at the moment, but if I look into it and it works I'll let people know as something they can use in the meantime.